


Children

by Valmouth



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Children, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:05:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmouth/pseuds/Valmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Gordon sees Robin, though, he almost has a heart attack. It’s the first time he ever seriously considers arresting the Batman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I own no rights to these characters, or to the general creative universe they are derived from. I mean no offence by posting this and make no money from it.

The problem is that John came to them fully grown. Mostly.

A bit of mentoring, a few words of advice, and they could safely leave him to do his own thing. John works independently, as an adult, and if he chooses to assist the Batman and the Commissioner, then it’s his choice to make.

With Dick, however...

Gordon stares when Bruce tells him he’s assumed legal guardianship of a recently orphaned circus boy.

He has his suspicions. Richard Grayson’s only thirteen years old. Bruce only became the world’s most famous recluse aged thirty. Who’s to say he didn’t end up impregnating a circus girl at some point before that?

“He looks nothing like me,” Bruce says softly, frowning reflexively over his shoulder, through the glass to where Dick is sprawled listlessly in front of the television.

Gordon bites down on the inside of his cheek and says nothing. Just watches the Gotham skyline from his place on the balcony.

Because boys at thirteen don’t look like anybody much, and both Bruce and his new ward are angular, dark-haired, light eyed and lithe. The boy is some kind of trapeze artist and he’s got musculature better than men double his age. Perfectly in accord with being the unknown son of a man who uses uncanny ninja skills to beat up criminals in dark alleys.

And Gordon really does wish Bruce would stop doing that so often.

He’s convinced that one of these days Bruce will go into a dark alley and find it’s a trap. Worse, one of these days, Bruce won’t get out of the trap alive.

They come to the mutual agreement that Dick must never learn about the Batman. For which Bruce will play the self-indulgent industrialist for a few hours longer every day, and Gordon will keep well away from the penthouse. Not that he’s been there all that much.

It’s a shock to realise he has been. Ever since Bruce came back and donned the suit again, Gordon’s dropped by every now and again to make sure his partner in crime isn’t bleeding out in the stairwell. Most of the time Bruce looks exhausted but pleased to see him, and they end up talking about the night’s work for a while.

It’s oddly comforting. In spite of the disparity of seeing the celebrity’s face spout the vigilante’s words.

Of course, conversation about criminals turns to conversation about the experience of crime, which turns to conversation about experiences in general and then turns to conversation about the world in general. Gordon talks about Chicago and his brother in the SAS, and Bruce talks about Italy and working as hired labour on an Australian farm.

It’s an ongoing conversation about life histories.

Which ends with a solid thud when Dick appears on the scene.

Then again, nothing works out like they plan – because nothing ever does – and Dick isn’t impressed by Bruce Wayne. Is convinced that Bruce only took him in to look good for the cameras, and because ‘girls love men with kids’, and he runs away.

Gordon could have told him that there are only three women Bruce has ever wanted to love him, and of those three one was his mother, two out of the three are dead, and the last on the shortlist is a world class cat burglar more emotionally damaged than he is. Gotham’s billionaire playboy has a sadder sex life that Gotham’s police commissioner. Which is saying a lot, since Gordon’s sex life has been nonexistent for some years.

Gordon doesn’t actually say any of this. Dick’s thirteen years old and doesn’t need to hear it. What the boy needs to hear is that he’s a fool for running away. Then he needs to hear that Bruce isn’t using him to buy public adulation. After which he needs to hear that it’s going to be okay.

Bruce walks into his office when he’s in the process of saying that, one hand on Dick’s shoulder, holding tight while Dick stares at the floor and pretends he’s too old to cry.

“You’re going to work it out, son,” Gordon says.

And Bruce is right there, watching the two of them, media darling mask slipped away to the seriousness he doesn’t usually allow himself in public, and maybe it’s the fact that this is a serious situation or maybe it’s the fact that Bruce is remembering what it was like to be a kid and grieving. Remembering when Gordon reached out and wrapped him in the jacket that smelled like his father and told him, in his turn, that it would be okay.

Gordon closes the office door behind him to give them both some space to work things out. By the time he reappears with terrible coffee and a soda, Bruce and Dick are having a reasonably polite conversation.

Actually, Gordon discovers, they’re negotiating.

They’re both stubborn, proud, and mistrustful, so it’s fairly interesting to watch.

What’s even more interesting to watch is the moment when Bruce shifts from polite attention to intent interest. Gordon’s never observed it from the sidelines before, though he’s been the object of it a couple of times.

“Thanks,” Bruce says in passing on his way out the door.

“That’s not necessary,” Gordon calls after him.

From the knowing look Bruce shoots him over his shoulder, they both see the old references.

The first time Gordon sees Robin, though, he almost has a heart attack. It’s the first time he ever seriously considers arresting the Batman.

John came to them fully grown but Dick has just turned fourteen. He’s still a minor, and he’s still grieving, and he can’t be expected to make a rational decision on whether or not he wants to risk his life behind a mask and a costume on the dark streets of Gotham.

“Are you nuts?” he demands, staring up from beside the cooling signal he’s only just turned off.

Batman is appropriately stoic and stony, immovable and implacable, and he gives Gordon some crap about this being good for ‘Robin’. Neither of them mention him by name, of course.

The boy in question is a kinetic ball of constant movement. He’s sarcastic and quick witted, and starts pacing back and forth across the rooftop as if he can’t bear to stay still.

But the minute Batman calls, he goes running.

Gordon mostly goes hot and cold.

He doesn’t see either of them for a couple of months. Gets Nightwing instead, which is fine. He likes John, and John, at least, doesn’t do stupid things like turn children into vigilantes. John is, in fact, pragmatic and sensible.

“I’ve talked to the kid,” John shrugs, “Made sure he knew what he was getting into. He says he gets it.”

“He’s a kid,” Gordon says severely, “What does he know?”

“Tell you what,” John sighs, “I’ll talk to the kid if you talk to the bigger idiot. We can try again, I suppose.”

They can try but it doesn’t work.

Anyway, Gordon gets busy, what with Poison Ivy turning up and trying to drug half the City with everything from highly toxic poisons to a highly potent aphrodisiac.

She manages to drug Dick with the latter, and Bruce hurriedly locks his sidekick into the tumbler and then looks at it with the gaze of a man who’s not sure he wants to know what’s going on inside his car.

“Want a ride?” Gordon asks ironically.

“I’ll manage,” Bruce says bravely, and vanishes into the tank.

Gordon doesn’t hear or see much of either of the two of them over the following days. Nightwing shrugs and says he hasn’t heard from them either.

Gordon has visions of one or both of them badly injured, or dead, or worse, this degenerating into very illegal sex. He's seen close proximity, loneliness and opportunity do worse things in his career in the police force. And he _really_ doesn’t want to have to arrest Bruce.

When he sees Bruce again, it’s at some charity fundraiser and the man looks the same as he always does. Doesn’t look overly exhausted or debauched. And he doesn’t look guilty as he pretends to forget the Commissioner’s name and shakes his head with rueful self-mockery.

“Memory like a goldfish,” Bruce Wayne says, and looks at a spot two inches short of Gordon’s nose.

Gordon is used to this, and he’s distracted himself.

Bruce’s eyes sharpen when a pretty red-head joins the Commissioner.

“Dad,” she says, and Bruce’s head rears back a little.

Gordon feels a little smug about that. “My daughter, Barbara,” he introduces gruffly, and goes through the formality of directing a warning glare at the playboy billionaire.

Even Bruce Wayne has more sense than to flirt outrageously with a woman less than half his age in front of her father. He is polite, and pleasant, and if his eyes rest appreciatively on her face just a little too long, well, no one mentions it.

Least of all Gordon, who isn’t entirely sure which of them he wants to protect from the other.

John ambles up, looking coolly efficient as Bruce Wayne’s PA, and Barbara’s eyes latch onto him and Gordon suspects he now knows exactly where the trouble’s going to lie. He resigns himself to the inevitable and ignores Bruce’s sudden sparkle of amusement hidden behind a champagne flute that never empties.

“I really must thank you, Commissioner,” Bruce murmurs, “My ward seems a lot less angry since you spoke to him.”

“Boys that age can be difficult,” Gordon says.

“Boys at any age,” Bruce corrects drily, “I was wondering if you could do me a favour and talk to him again. He seems to like you.”

“Me?”

“You’ve had some practice with this parenting stuff,” Bruce points out.

The tone is light but the words drop like stone. Gordon feels suddenly ashamed of himself.

“Alright,” he says.

A wide, white smile is flashed at him and Bruce says, “Great! I’ll send the Rolls tomorrow evening. You’ll have dinner with us, of course. Bring Barbara. She can have a look at the library.”

Then he strides off, already accosting the next unfortunate person, and if Gordon didn’t know better he’d be caught off guard by having his life commandeered. He soothes himself with the thought that at least Bruce hasn’t held a stapler to his head this time.

He’s not especially pleased about the prospect of playing father-confessor, which is great because Dick isn’t especially pleased about the prospect either. On the other hand, Dick does seem pleased to see Barbara.

Gordon watches in mounting alarm as Dick’s interest shifts from vague to intent, and the boy proceeds to charm his daughter in a manner more suited to someone ten years older.

Bruce looks just as surprised.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” he says.

“This is your fault,” Gordon says ominously, “Fix it.”

“It’s harmless. He’ll get over it.”

Gordon is too nice to point out that Bruce Wayne fell in love with Rachel Dawes when they were children, and did not, in fact, get over it. He suspects Bruce will only shrug at the age difference next.

In the end, the evening is ridiculous and the only sane person in that mausoleum of a penthouse is Alfred. Who serves them, passes a witty remark, and leaves them to get on with it.

Bruce and Gordon camp out on the balcony and watch ‘the children’, while Barbara Gordon beams down at Dick Grayson like a pretty, kindly moon.

As far as Gordon knows, that’s the last time his daughter meets Bruce Wayne’s ward.

Since this is Gotham, he is very wrong.

He recognises his daughter in spite of the mask and the costume and the terrifying bat motif worked into the suit across her chest. He recognises her even when she’s punching a villain with the kind of roundhouse action he’s seen Bruce use.

Not often, that’s true, since Bruce was broken down and remade into a fighting machine by ninjas, but every now and again the Batman lapses back into street brawling tactics. Whatever it is, his daughter is Batgirl and he’s so angry with both of them he’s ready to strangle Bruce.

Who accepts the blame with the air of a man who’s used to blaming himself for everything anyway.

Things are a little strained for a while and then John turns up in the hospital, bleeding out through a hole in his liver, and between the surgery and the shock and finding out what happened, he doesn’t consider letting the grudge get in way of making things right.

John’s an orphan, which is becoming an ongoing theme in Gordon’s life, and the only family he has is the one he’s made himself.

They all gather at the hospital like a bad joke – the billionaire, the policeman, the librarian and the circus brat – and then three of them vanish, leaving Gordon to wait alone.

John survives, because that’s what John does.

He seems a little emotionally overwrought by the cluster of people who visit him. Including the orphanage kids, who Bruce Wayne arranges buses for them with all the sangfroid of a man who doesn’t have to personally deal with swarms of excitable children running down the hospital corridors.

John actually tries to get up just to marshal the kids into some semblance of good behaviour.

Gordon hears all about it later, when he turns up and the harried nurses complain.

Bruce is utterly unrepentant.

“It took his mind off things,” he says, like that’s all that matters.

Gordon suspects that in Bruce’s world it probably does. And unfortunately, Bruce is right – John is far more cheerful, has more colour, and his eyes are clearer.

It turns out there’s a new villain in town. This worries Gordon, who’s still cleaning up Poison Ivy’s assault on the city.

The new villain takes the old adage about revenge being best served cold literally. The first guard they find frozen solid in Westerfield Mall is shocking, but when they find the second one shattered into pieces on the floor, the slow thaw leaving puddles of blood and gore scattered over dingy tile, he feels physically ill.

He never thought he’d ever have to figure out to how stand on someone’s doorstep and say he’s sorry their parent or spouse or child was snap-frozen and smashed like a bad science experiment.

The Batgirl gathers samples of blood and crystallized flesh with neat, quick movements, seemingly unaffected. Gordon finds his daughter scrubbing her hands raw the next morning, mascara dried into tear-streaks down her face.

Dick vanishes for two days and Bruce makes the decision to let his almost-sixteen year old ward fight his own battles while he goes after Mr. Freeze. Robin makes a heroic comeback at the last minute and takes his place beside Batman. Together they’re unstoppable.

The police don’t even know anything’s happening until after everything’s over. Gordon deals with the clean-up and then storms off to the penthouse at first light, furious at being kept out of the loop on what was, essentially, police business.

Alfred lets him in but Bruce is fast asleep, slumped face first over a laptop, glass half-full of protein shake sitting perilously near the edge of the desk.

Gordon sighs and shakes the man behind the mask none too gently awake.

“Go to bed,” he says shortly, “That’s going to break your back.”

Bruce is still half asleep, flushed and drowsy. His mouth curves into a gentle grin and he mutters, “Been there, done that,” before stumbling to his feet.

In all the years Gordon has known the Batman, and in the couple of years since he’s known Bruce, he never imagined he’d end up ushering the man to bed and glaring at the door for an Alfred that doesn’t appear.

“Take off your shoes,” he sighs.

And Bruce, sprawled over a bed that looks like no one’s used it in days – or nights at least – mumbles something unintelligible and doesn’t shift.

Gordon yanks off his shoes and his socks and, as an afterthought, his belt.

Bruce cants his hips a little when Gordon’s hands work around the waistband of his pants. Hazel eyes slit open, suddenly aware.

“I’m too tired right now,” Bruce rumbles, “But if you come back tomorrow night, we can try this again.”

Gordon lets go very fast, but from the look Bruce is giving him, the offer is meant in all seriousness. Gordon prefers to treat it like a joke. Which it is. About as funny as Dick Grayson developing a crush on his daughter in spite of the ten years between them.

At least Dick has the excuse of youth and inexperience. Bruce isn’t young and inexperienced, neither is Gordon, they’ve got a lot more than ten years between them, and oh God, he really isn’t prepared for the onslaught of images he’s suddenly getting.

Alfred, mercifully, appears in the doorway.

“I can come back later,” Alfred says, eyebrows lifting.

Bruce groans and throws an arm across his eyes. “Alfred,” he says, “I’ve shocked the Commissioner. I think he’d really like to leave now.”

“I’m not shocked,” Gordon corrects.

Bruce snorts from under his arm but doesn’t reply.

“But I do need to leave,” Gordon says, glancing at the window. He pats Bruce’s knee absently before feeling foolish about it and makes sure to close the bedroom door behind him when he’s done.

Alfred is kind and says nothing. Offers coffee and breakfast, if the Commissioner wants it, and the Commissioner does, though he regretfully turns down the breakfast.

Alfred looks as ancient as Gordon feels some days, and it’s awkward, being propositioned for sexual congress with a man young enough to be his son and then having coffee with the man’s former guardian.

The parallels between his life and Dick’s evident ambitions give him vertigo.

Especially when Grayson wanders in with a backpack, heavy-eyed from lack of sleep but otherwise alert, and blurts out, “What are you doing here?” in tones of deep suspicion.

“Drinking coffee,” Gordon says mildly.

Dick rolls his eyes and grabs an apple. And leaves again.

“Master Bruce sent him to bed and continued working alone last night,” Alfred says conversationally.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Gordon remarks.

They don’t reach any consensus that morning. Alfred makes small talk and coffee, and Gordon drinks and replies, and then they nod to each other and go their separate ways.


	2. Chapter 2

Gordon does not go back to the penthouse the next night. John’s cooped up at the manor, complaining bitterly that the orphans are driving him crazy, Father Reilly is overwhelmed with annual paperwork, and he’s too sore to move much.

Stephens and Barnard accompany him on a mission of mercy, and bring cards, poker chips, and beer. John can’t drink, but he can play poker. And he starts losing badly enough that it cheers him up.

Gordon’s willing to bet that Bruce does not play poker with his bats and robins and nightwings.

Of course, Bruce is also nothing if not consistently surprising, so when Bruce turns up unexpectedly half-way through the game, Gordon goes white and then red and then stares at the table while Barnard stares in avaricious speculation at Bruce Wayne, calculates the contents of his wallet and the cost of his watch, and offers to deal him in.

Bruce accepts with far too much good cheer.

John hides a grin behind his glass of water.

Gordon just considers how long he’ll have to sit there before he can leave.

It turns out that Bruce isn’t brilliant at poker, but he is competent enough to know when he’s being cheated and he has an uncanny ability to read tells.

John eventually goes grey-faced and breathes in short, careful stutters that tell Gordon he’s had enough for one night. He clears away the cards and the chips and the remnants of beer, and Barnard helps Stephens out the door.

Bruce catches his arm before he can follow them.

“I’ll drive the Commissioner back,” Bruce says, eyes intent.

Which is a lie. Bruce doesn’t drive him anywhere. Not right away. First he leads him down a hallway, down the stairs, and through the ballroom to a room with an austere looking piano.

Then he hits three sequences of notes that sound wildly out of tune, and Gordon watches as a secret panel swings open.

“My original lair,” Bruce says, the corner of his mouth twisting up.

The original Bat cave is wet. And cold. Gordon is oddly surprised by that. He’s never seen any of the Batman’s bunkers – for safety’s sake as well as lack of opportunity – but he’s imagined high tech computers and rows of gadgets in neatly secured cabinets.

What he gets is a single computer on a perfectly normal desk, with a few things he doesn’t recognise plugged into it. There are floodlights out of the way of the water, just enough to bring some light into the gloom, mostly located over a group of trestle tables covered in electronics and tools. There’s a hulking shape beneath the tarp in one corner, a gleaming bike ready to leave at a moment’s notice. There’s a metalwork section set up in the back near the clunky old elevator.

And in a cage that Gordon recognises from evidence lockers that were antique when he was young, he sees the Nightwing suit.

Bruce gives him his first blow job right there in the cave, going down on his knees in the cold and the wet, mouth so hot Gordon’s legs give way.

He returns the favour with a hand shoved down the open front of Bruce’s pants. There’s very little space in the circumstances to properly work him to completion but Bruce doesn’t seem to mind him fumbling.

When it’s done, they clean themselves off and Bruce matter-of-factly rinses his mouth out with cold water from the waterfall.

“It’s pure,” he says, “There’s a spring somewhere.”

Gordon goes home and gibbers quietly to himself in delayed panic. Then he waits two days. Then he calls Bruce.

“We need to talk about this,” he says.

“Later,” Bruce dismisses, and kisses him hard, one hand possessively cradling the back of his head.

That’s the first night he gets Bruce on his back, legs wrapped around his waist while they grind together.

Later becomes a couple of weeks in which Gordon collects memories of Bruce’s hands gripping his shoulders, of the hot stickiness of Bruce’s skin against his, of the way Bruce bites on Gordon’s fingers to stay quiet when he’s fucked into the mattress.

They’re sneaking around, really, because there’s still Dick and Barbara to consider, and John, even if John isn’t quite in the same category. Gordon’s not sure he knows what’s going on himself; explaining it to someone else seems like an exercise in futility.

Especially when he finds himself very much afraid of how his daughter will react.

Bruce thinks he has experience of being a father but in a situation like this Gordon has nothing to draw on. His experience of fatherhood is absence.

Barbara can smile sweetly and say she and Jimmy always understood – and he believes they do – but the point stands that he wasn’t often there. Long hours at the office, overtime, extra shifts trying to make ends meet, and when his salary went up, so did the danger.

He has fond memories, of course, of tucking his children in, of playing with them, talking to them. He even has fond memories of driving down to Cleveland, of Christmases spent cataloguing all the ways his children had changed. And Babs, more than Jimmy, has always made an effort to meet him halfway.

Even so he’s not sure how to talk about this.

A woman, yes, he’s reasonably sure he could stumble his way through an introduction for a girlfriend. He’s reasonably sure that Babs will take pity on him and take everything in her stride. But a man is one thing, and Bruce Wayne is entirely another.

It doesn’t help that Bruce has all the communication skills of an oyster.

And this isn’t something they can negotiate over.

He indulges Bruce at first because he wants to. The sex is good but there’s an added bonus of satisfaction in the fact that they are still friends and allies, which is far more important than being lovers, and they both understand the parts of their lives they close off from other people.

It’s entirely fitting in the circumstances that they’re eventually discovered.

John decides he’s had enough of sitting around on his ass for weeks on end, and takes a little night flight. Along the way he decides to stop by Gordon’s place, and the first thing Gordon knows about it is when there’s a clatter outside the window as Nightwing falls off the railing.

Bruce is off him and whipping around at the first sign of potential danger but there’s a limit to how dangerous he can look with his pants unbuttoned and his dick hanging out. 

He puts himself away and zips back up, which somewhat helps his projection of menace.

John surrenders before Bruce punches him or Gordon shoots him, and after that it’s all over except the embarrassment.

Even under the mask, John looks traumatised.

Gordon’s not sure what to expect in the aftermath but what he definitely doesn’t expect is John cornering him in the kitchen and getting squinty-eyed at him.

“I’m not even sure which of you I need to be threatening,” John says baldly, “But I’m picking his corner because he’s more likely to go crazy and kill us all if this goes bad. Please try not to break him.”

Gordon stands in his own kitchen, and lets John lecture him in five short, pithy sentences. Luckily for him, John doesn’t hold with long speeches, and since John is still traumatised and really doesn’t want to know the details, he doesn’t have to do more than nod and hide his discomfort by pushing his glasses up his nose.

“We should talk,” he says yet again, confronting the lion in his kitchen.

The lion – in this case, Bruce – puts down the glass and rests both hands on the table. Curls his fingers around the edges and meets Gordon’s eyes with firm, decisive bravery. And nods.

“I’m too old,” Gordon starts, “And I’m not gay. This has the potential to be a very bad idea.”

Bruce refutes his arguments one by one.

Not with logic, because God knows there is no logic left to what they’re doing. For Gotham, for justice, for each other. There is no logic left for them to excuse putting their lives on the line, knowing that they are the cause and effect of what the city must and will face.

“You’re not old,” Bruce says, “And on a sliding scale of one to what really matters, age doesn’t figure all that highly.”

Gordon understands. He feels the same way.

He’s happy, and whole, and for the first time in a very long time he isn’t lonely. But the truth is that Bruce _is_ far too many years younger than he is.

“How old are you?” Gordon demands, “Forty six? Forty eight?”

“Forty three,” Bruce says.

“Christ.”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” he says, voice low, intent, eyes serious, “I trust you.”

He does, and it doesn’t matter. None of this does. But they’re too far gone for those sorts of lies.

Gordon raises his eyebrows. “I’m sixty one. I’m almost ready to retire, Bruce. Hell, five years from now I’ll probably lose my teeth, my hair and all bladder control. That is not the kind of partner you need.”

“Jim,” Bruce says gently, “Chances are I won’t be alive in five years. And given your alliance to Batman and your talent for rattling cages, maybe you won’t either. Time isn’t a luxury we get.”

And Gordon really doesn’t like the sound of Bruce’s certainty on this point.

“You can’t plan to die in the next five years,” he replies.

“You can’t plan to lose bladder control in the next five years either,” Bruce retaliates.

Gordon pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re missing the point. The part that really matters,” he sighs, “Is what will happen if we do this and it doesn’t work out.”

While he’s reasonably sure that John was joking about Bruce going crazy and killing them all over nothing more than a convenience, there is the possibility that this will become a weakness. He’s already a way to get to the Batman as an ally and a friend – how much worse as a lover?

“Let me make this easy on you,” Bruce says, “I’m not logical about this kind of thing. Rachel was, and Selina. I don’t know what your choice is and I don’t know how it’s going to turn out in five years but I’m okay with what we have right now. If you want that, you can have it. It’s all I can offer.”

The problem is that Gordon doesn’t know what exactly Bruce is offering. What he thinks they’ve got is a huge damn mess. What Bruce thinks they’ve got is too far beyond his realm of experience.

And then Dick tries to throw John off a building.

John isn’t pleased about that.

Which Gordon understands. What he also understands is that while he and Bruce have been busy with each other, the little triangle revolving around Batgirl has gotten out of hand.

Gordon has kept away from the penthouse through everything. He’s stayed away from the line that Bruce straddles between corroborative evidence and unproven fact. He’s always given Bruce the benefit of the doubt. The space to work things out his way.

But when he sees the state his daughter is in, he throws it in for a word with Dick.

Bruce stands between his lover and his ward – the only time he ever does – and lies through his teeth without pretending to do otherwise. He tells Gordon that Dick has gone to Paris for the rest of the summer.

“Throwing people off buildings isn’t harmless. Stop him before he goes too far.”

Three days later, Dick does leave Gotham. And he does go to Paris. He even spends the whole summer there. When the summer’s over, he comes home.

It turns out what he’s mostly done in Paris is train. With a wanted assassin.

Gordon’s so far beyond questioning Bruce’s complicated moral compass that he merely sighs when John tells him.

John is, justifiably, somewhat worried about this new and improved Robin. Taller Robin, too; Dick’s grown since he’s been away. And something about his face has hardened into the mask Gordon’s only seen on one other person. John was too old to learn that from Bruce but Dick isn’t, and the kid’s learned all too well.

Things have cooled in the summer. Literally and figuratively.

Bruce has been making frequent trips to Washington. Babs has been promoted. John has been left holding Gotham and has developed a bit of a phobia about the wooden railing outside Gordon’s house.

Gordon’s been busy doing all the things Commissioners are supposed to do – policy making, report writing, grant applications, financial wizardry – spending less time on the streets and more time in his office. He doesn’t miss the streets, really. He does occasionally find his thoughts turning to the rooftops.

Gordon tells himself that he knew it would never work. They’re too different. He can’t imagine it would have worked even if Bruce had been a woman, if neither of them were involved in law enforcement, and if regrettable incidents in the past hadn’t taken place. He ignores the little voice that tells him those were the only reasons he had a chance in the first place.

He ignores it so much he ends up in a romance with Sarah Essen.

She’s a lieutenant in a downtown precinct, and he likes her. He’s always liked her. He has a history with her, though Bruce doesn’t know that.

For a man with an uncanny genius for reconnaissance and detection, Gordon’s reasonably sure that Bruce doesn’t even remember Sarah, though Batman’s met her on a crime scene once, years ago.

He ignores the image in his head of the Batman’s gaze passing right through her and settling with disconcerting familiarity on him.

Because it’s Gotham, Bruce finds out. Because his life is apparently a soap opera, it doesn’t go well.

It happens when he takes Sarah down an unfortunately sinister alleyway. What he should have done was take the road well travelled, or at the very least well-lit, and avoided areas where outnumbered police commissioners and lieutenants with high success rates could be so easily ambushed.

It’s lucky for him that the Batman is on hand to play knight in black armour.

Bruce is efficient, professional, and dedicated to his chosen vocation. He doesn’t get vicious until after he’s finished off the assailants.

The would-be assassins are tied in neat bundles of two and left propped against the wall. All of them are out, scattered with bloodied noses, black eyes, potential fractures and dislocations. At least one of them is missing teeth.

“Commissioner,” Dick says, and there’s an odd note of shock in his voice.

Gordon straightens up from the illegal weapons he’s been gathering in little piles. Emptying out gun clips into Sarah’s handbag. “Robin.”

“Gordon.”

One word practically gives him frostbite.

“Batman,” he returns, because damned if he’s going to be embarrassed about this.

All Bruce offered, as far as he can tell, is an undefined and unstructured sexual convenience based on friendship and trust.

Robin looks back and forth between them, and all of a sudden he looks uncertain. Like he’s not sure what’s going to happen next.

Gordon’s not so sure himself.

And Bruce just stands there like the hideous statue of the Batman come to life.

Sarah finally breaks the spell when she puts down her two by four and says, “I’ll call it in, Jim.”

Her ‘Jim’ drops into the silence like a bomb. Gordon actually winces.

Bruce’s eyes flick towards Sarah and Gordon can see the wheels start to turn.

“You’ve got the situation in hand, Commissioner,” is all Bruce says, “Enjoy your night.”

“Enjoy...”

Words fail him.

He watches Bruce throw up a line and vanish into the sky. Watches Robin follow a split second later. Sarah’s got her back turned, speaking rapidly into her phone.

The paperwork takes a long time. A long, long time. And at some godforsaken hour of late morning, his PA comes in and shuts the door behind her, looking a little winded.

“Um,” she says, “Bruce Wayne’s ward is here to see you, Commish.”

Dick’s blatantly cutting school, standing two feet inside his office clutching his backpack like he expects someone to take it from him.

The boy looks a lot frustrated.

Gordon wonders why until Dick blurts out, “Look, it’s all my fault and I’m sorry.”

That, he is not expecting.

He blinks and frowns. “Excuse me?”

“It’s my fault. This whole thing. You and him fighting. It’s my fault and I’m sorry. Can you please just end the cold war?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about but...”

“You and Bruce.”

Gordon tosses a reflexive glance at his office door but that’s firmly shut. Dick’s learned how to close doors at least, if he hasn’t learned any other discretion.

“I’m sorry about the thing with John. Hell, I can try to like the asshole if that means it fixes things.”

The conversation takes some time to work itself out. Gordon eventually figures out that Dick feels he’s somehow caused the rift between Bruce and the man who is, essentially, the only other friend Bruce has apart from his butler, the CEO of his company, and another young man who beats up criminals in dark alleyways.

This isn’t strictly untrue, given the circumstances, but once again the truth is not what Dick needs to hear.

This time Gordon does not say it’s okay. He says it’s not okay to try to kill allies. He says it’s not okay to skip school. And he says the hostility isn’t Dick’s fault. Then he listens sympathetically while Dick says awkward things about friends and how Bruce doesn’t have any and maybe doesn’t always understand what’s required to keep friends on friendly terms.

“I don’t think it’s something you have to worry about,” Gordon says.

Dick kicks his chair up on its back legs and grins with obnoxious humour. “Sure it is. Us kids don’t like it when mommy and daddy fight.”

Gordon goes cold and then hot and by the time he’s changed colour from white to red to sickly green in the middle, Dick’s overbalanced his chair in shock and gone crashing to less than pleasantly hard floor.

His PA comes running in, looking alarmed.

“Should I call someone?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“I should go,” Dick says, trying to turn tail and run.

“You,” he says shortly, and closes his fist decisively on the back of Dick’s collar, “Are coming with me.”

He takes him to the park because there’s nowhere more private and less likely to have bugs than the park. If there are any tracking devices, they’re probably on his clothing or implanted under his skin, and nothing short of a full body scan every couple of days is going to change the odds that someone will want to know where he is at any given time of the day or night.

He suspects at least a couple of those bugs and tracking devices were manufactured in the R & D department of Wayne Enterprises.

Or just bought with Wayne money.

Bruce doesn’t always need to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes the products are already there, ready for the right playboy billionaire to find some kind of masked vigilante use for them against organised crime and psychotic villains who want to take over the world.

Dick is uncharacteristically silent on the walk over.

“Right,” Gordon says, and then can’t figure out how to start this conversation.

So they buy hotdogs and don’t say much. And then Dick says something about school, and college, and moving, and Gordon knows this territory. He swallows whatever’s in his mouth and listens. Doesn’t even need to respond. Once the kid starts, he can’t seem to stop himself.

It pours out in a litany of uncertainty and doubt and partially repressed guilt, and Gordon soaks up the sun and nods encouragingly.

“Have you told him?” he asks.

Dick shrugs.

“You have to tell him at some point.”

“He has plans for how this is going to go,” Dick says heavily.

“So tell him to change them.”

“It’s not that easy.”

A far cry from the kid who didn’t want any part of Bruce Wayne’s world. Who thought he was merely another human accessory, like the pretty models and picture-postcard butler.

“What’s he going to do alone, Commissioner?”

“He’s not exactly alone,” Gordon points out.

This is essentially a lie. Bruce is alone. He just happens to be alone while surrounded with people.

Dick doesn’t believe him either.

“You know I’m in love with your daughter, right?”

Gordon doesn’t need to even answer that. It’s been obvious since the moment Dick laid eyes on her.

Dick shakes his head. “This is such a mess.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

It is a mess. It’s also a little incestuous. Gordon has enough of a headache dealing with Bruce. He doesn’t know how Barbara can deal with Dick and John simultaneously.

On the other hand, his daughter is also a Bat, and that implies that she’s caught a touch of the madness that plagues the whole lot of them.

He washes his hands of her, and of Bruce, Dick, and John and the whole stinking mess of it. And then he breaks things off with Sarah and gets royally drunk all by himself.

He passes out on the living room couch and wakes up in bed, completely naked. There’s a glass of water and two tablets on his bedside table, and a wastepaper basket neatly lined up on the floor beside him.

“Thanks,” he croaks sarcastically at the window, then swallows down the pills before impatiently pushing the bin aside in his attempts to get some clothes on.

He feels like hell for the rest of the day but by the evening, his head has cleared up. So he gets drunk again.

The same thing happens.

Out of curiosity, he repeats the process.

He gets the same response.

On the third night, he doesn’t bother with the whiskey. A couple of shots to calm his nerves and then he waits. Tenses at the first creak of the railing and then the snick of the latch on his window. But the pointy ears are obvious even in the dark and Bruce turns on the lights within a split second of entering the room.

“You make house calls,” Gordon notes.

Bruce’s eyes are hard and glittering, almost frighteningly pale against the matte black of the mask and paint.

Gordon sighs. “We need to talk.”

This, apparently, turns out to be the wrong thing to say. Bruce growls, low and feral and threatening, and then he’s in Gordon’s face, panting like he’s run half a marathon and looking like he’s angry enough to smash his fist through the wall.

“You could have told me,” Bruce grates out, “Any time in the last ten months. Why did you lie to me?”

“I didn’t lie.”

“You didn’t tell me about Essen. That was a lie.”

“She wasn’t around when we started. It was four dates and one night,” Gordon says, and he’s not prepared to back down, not even with Batman snarling in his face.

He’s never had the full force of that violence pointed in his direction before. It’s certainly an unforgettable experience. Like some kind of wild beast show where he’s goaded the animal to enraged movement and now has to figure out if he can deal with the consequences.

“One night is too many,” Bruce says, and kisses him like this is a reasonable act of punishment.

Gordon, in his defence, just doesn’t want to wind up getting hit. Getting kissed is preferable. Very, very preferable. He has a few minutes to come to the realisation that he’s missed this. Almost achingly, painfully, and he has no clue where the catches to Bruce’s costume are because he’s never actually done this with the Batman.

“For fuck’s sake,” John yells, and slams the window shut.

Gordon startles, jerks away, and Bruce matter-of-factly snags the front of his shirt and drags him back, and then proceeds to kiss him again.

Gordon decides he definitely prefers that, and far more than not getting hit, he prefers it to not getting kissed at all for the last eight months.

Bruce is hot and sweat-slick and covered in bruises but he bares his teeth in something that might be a snarl or a smile, or possibly both, when Gordon forces a dry finger into him.

“Come on,” he hisses, “Harder, Jim. Come on.”

An hour later, Gordon contemplates that he’s just as mad as anyone else. But then again, an hour later he’s exhausted and sated, and Bruce is dozing beside him, one arm flung across his stomach, nose just about touching his shoulder.

Gordon absent-mindedly rakes his fingernails back and forth across the taunt skin of Bruce’s forearm and is rewarded with a contented rumble.

“I broke things off with her, you know,” he says.

Bruce doesn’t answer.

Bruce sleeps like the dead. And he’s large enough to take up a substantial portion of the bed. Plus, he radiates heat like a furnace.

Gordon’s not used to sharing his bed with anyone anymore, and certainly not with someone like Bruce. He stays awake through most of the night.

It’s really all the better to think because the fact of the matter is, things haven’t changed. Bruce Wayne is still technically out of bounds. And it isn’t just the age difference or the uncertainty. He could work with that. He’s worked with less with far more at stake than just some awkwardness and a broken heart.

The part that really matters, as he well knows, is what’s going to happen when it all goes to hell.

And it will. It has to. 

He can’t see this ending any other way.

Come to that, he doesn’t know what sort of ending it’s _allowed_ to have. There are no reassuring expectations in this.

There are expectations with Sarah. He knows how things work, what his options are. They can date, and if it works out, they can keep dating. At some point, they’ll decide whether they want to get a little serious about things. They’ll either back off or take the chance. They’ll figure out if they want to live together, if they want to get married, what Sarah feels about the fact that he can’t or won’t have any more children. They’ll figure out who does what when in the house, and coordinate their schedules, and meet other couples in similar boats doing exactly the same thing.

With Bruce, this is entirely uncharted territory. There is no looming spectre of marriage and definitely no spectre of children.

And this, this is the part that makes Gordon determined to argue his case. Because Bruce’s happy ending, whether the man admits it or not, is to have a family. A proper, legitimate, bells and whistles normal family. A wife and kids with all the trimmings.

Bruce sleeps with the heavy, completely inert abandon of someone who gets too little sleep on an ordinary basis.

By the time he wakes up, Gordon’s had his first cigarette of the day and is prepared to deal with this whole mess before it gets out of hand.

Bruce opens his eyes, takes one look at him, and goes from relaxed to high alert in two seconds.

“What’s wrong?”

“We really should talk.”

Bruce sits up. “I see.”

The sheets slip down and Gordon could peek, if he really wanted to. Has no idea when male anatomy became so fascinating, so attractive. A few passing thoughts, yes, but never like this.

Bruce misunderstands his silence.

“What do you want me to say,” he asks, “What kind of promise are you looking for?”

Promises, like expectations, are not mapped out in something like this. Gordon doesn’t even know what he’s allowed to ask for. So he shrugs.

“Nothing,” he replies truthfully, because that’s about all he expects.

Bruce rakes his hands over his face, smearing the remnants of the black paint around his eyes. Breathes in deep and lets it out slow. “So if we never do this again, it’s alright with you?” he notes, “What, we go back to how things were? We pretend it didn’t happen?”

“That might be preferable,” Gordon says.

Bruce stares at him, and then gets up.

“We’re still friends,” Gordon adds.

Though he’s not so very sure. Bruce isn’t looking very friendly.

It’s odd to see him gather up the bits of armour, the suit, the mask and cowl and straps.

The morning is depressing. Damp and cold and utterly fitting for a broken heart.

It’s apparently also utterly fitting for getting kidnapped. By John. Who can’t look him in the eye but can look furious, even while waiting at a red light.

Gordon winds up at the same park bench he sat on with Dick just a few days ago, listening to yet another of Bruce’s lost boys talks at him.

Of course, John’s conversation is on an entirely different matter but the central theme is the same: everybody’s worried about Bruce.

For a man who can take care of himself, Bruce inspires some very protective urges in the people who know him.

John talks and talks and talks. And when he’s done, Gordon buys them both ice-creams. It seems the appropriate thing to do in the circumstances. He’s sore in places he’s reasonably sure John doesn’t want to think about, and John seems to be in a state of nervous agitation over not thinking about them.

“I’d never have picked it,” John says halfway through.

Gordon says nothing.

“The two of you, I mean. It’s not... well, you were married. He was running around with Selina Kyle.”

“I got divorced,” Gordon points out mildly, “And he isn’t with Selina Kyle.”

John shakes his head impatiently.

The problem is that John doesn’t actually get it. Gordon doesn’t get it himself. Doesn’t understand it. Doesn’t know when he turned around one day and figured out that Bruce’s mouth was made to be kissed, and wanted to know what his skin tasted like, and wanted to see him smile a lot more than he did.

Wants to, really, because that part hasn’t changed.

That’s the part that John doesn’t get. That the feelings are no different from Barbara or Sarah or the handful of women he dated back when he was younger and had more time. It’s odd because Bruce shouldn’t fit the spaces beside him.

“Well,” he says, “It’s over now.”

John sighs and licks mournfully at his ice-cream. “This is such a mess.”

Gordon finishes his cone and nods. Just as the clouds open up and really start to pour rain down on Gotham City.

They’re thoroughly soaked. And he’s thoroughly miserable. He goes back to work anyway, which might explain why he catches a bad cold that he ignores for a while until he spends a whole night in the grip of a delirious fever. It breaks by the morning but his head feels hollow and he can’t breathe properly.

Babs comes around to check in on him, takes one look at him, and promptly hauls him into a doctor’s office.

“A cold I can handle,” she scolds, “You didn’t say it was the final stage before death.”

“I don’t feel well,” he admits.

The doctor agrees with him. And sends him straight back home.

Gordon is a lot of things but a good patient isn’t one of them.

He’s aware, at one point, of the familiar feeling of being watched roll down his spine. He lifts his head painfully but there’s nothing he can see in the shadows on the other side of the room. At least, not without his glasses.

It’s how he knows Bruce is right there.

This is the point where they realise they’re acting like complete idiots.

“You’re going to get sick,” Gordon mumbles.

“Shut up,” Bruce says, and strips off the last of his armour.

Gordon doesn’t know where Bruce finds clothes that fit but he wakes up a few hours later when Bruce shakes him awake to force water down his throat.

Babs has vanished.

Gordon would not have picked Bruce as a ministering angel, and mostly he isn’t, unless ministering angels are supposed to look grim and lethal. It makes him laugh, and makes his throat hurt.

Bruce’s mouth twitches into a tiny smile that makes his head ache because his chest tightens and he snags the hand that’s fussing with his blanket.

“Thanks,” he whispers.

Bruce’s hand proceeds to brush gently against his brow. “You’re still running a fever,” he observes, and goes away.

When a couple of days have passed, Gordon gets militantly out of bed and staggers into the shower.

Bruce shrugs and looks relieved.

Gordon comes back out to find his bed stripped and the windows open.

“You look better,” Bruce says, and gestures him towards the couch, “See if you can survive being up.”

“I should call in,” Gordon says.

Bruce hands over his phone without a word. And then leaves the apartment altogether, saying something about needing to get back to work himself.

The first thing that hits him is that his apartment looks different. All the furniture’s still there; nothing is especially cleaner or neater. What troubles him is the briefcase in one corner of the room, the pen and sketchpad on the coffee table, the silk tie flung over the back of a chair.

He’s never owned a silk tie in his life, the pen is gold, and the briefcase is definitely leather. None of these three things are his and he doesn’t imagine these are get-well gifts. And Babs is far more likely to leave scarves and shoes around his front room than gold pens and silk ties.

Since he is a detective, he detects that Bruce has been partially living in his apartment over the last three days.

Given the silk tie, he’s at least entered the apartment as Bruce Wayne, and Gordon forces himself not to look behind the couch for evidence of Batman.

When Bruce gets home – and Gordon refuses to acknowledge the implications of the phrasing of that thought – he’s upright and still awake. His throat is sore, but beyond a few brief, blunt questions, Bruce leaves him alone. Puts down a plastic bag of Chinese take-out and makes himself scarce.

When he comes back twenty minutes later, his hair is damp, and his skin is flushed, and he moves like every muscle has suddenly gone liquid and heavy. It looks ridiculously attractive except for the reddened eyes with the dark circles bruising the skin just underneath.

“You should get some sleep,” Gordon croaks.

“When I get back,” Bruce replies.

They eat in silence, maybe out of deference to Gordon’s throat, and then Bruce leaves. Stumbles out the door and doesn’t say where he’s going or what he plans to do when he gets there. Leaves without so much as an explanation.

He does leave with a goodbye.

Gordon’s not sure how goodbyes are supposed to go with them.

A moment’s reflection reminds him that they haven’t exchanged too many goodbyes in the past. There’s always been something more important to rush to; a sort of hurried exchange of reminders and then a door or a window or the night air of the City between them.

Mostly what they’ve had are emergencies and interruptions.

Mostly what Gordon’s had is the Batman vanishing mid-conversation.

What he gets this time is a nod of the head, a slightly softer look in those eyes.

“Be careful,” Gordon croaks, and is all too aware of the fact that he is not going to be in his office tonight. Not going to be anywhere near the resources he needs should anything arise.

Should anything arise, he will, in fact, be at home in pyjamas and slippers. Possibly watching television.

It’s a frightening thought.

But he stays in because he still feels wretched. He’s more use to the City keeping to himself, and staying away from where he can do some damage with impaired judgement.

At some point he falls asleep on the couch. And wakes up to the feel of someone’s fingers in his hair.

In the moments between waking and sleeping, he lets himself relax beneath the touch. Lets himself drift. The gentle pressure against his scalp eases tension he didn’t know he’d been carrying. Days later he’ll tell himself that he’d been sick and it was simple life-affirmation. Plenty of psychological reasons for why his barriers were down.

At the time, he merely enjoys it. Appreciates it. Even with the fact that those fingers are attached to a strong male wrist which leads to a forearm which leads to an elbow, bicep, shoulder – all attached, in the end, to Bruce Wayne.

Like almost everything else in his life.

“You look like hell,” he mutters, and gets a quirk of one side of Bruce’s mouth for his pains.

It’s not a particularly amused smile so much as a tired show of companionship.

They go to bed, which feels in the cold light of morning as ridiculous as it sounds. But like the last time he watched Bruce sleep, there is something bittersweet in smoking by the window while he watches the muscled chest rise and fall. This night Bruce sleeps lightly, and wakes up several times.

But though he seems aware when he sees Gordon by the window, he says nothing. Merely shuts his eyes again and goes back to sleep. Maybe shifts a little. Maybe curls up.

Gordon gets through two cigarettes before Bruce finally deigns to rise for the day.

Heavy-lidded hazel eyes regard him steadily, with no particular expression.

“We need to talk,” Gordon says.

Bruce blinks. “Does it help?”

It really doesn’t.

So they don’t.

Gordon finishes his cigarette while Bruce rolls out of bed and limps into the bathroom. Does what any normal person does to start the day and Gordon is all too aware that in spite of everything, Bruce’s body works like any normal body does.

Has, in fact, intimate knowledge of that.

What he does not have intimate knowledge of is watching Bruce Wayne get dressed for a day at the office.

There are clothes in his closet that are not in his size and cost far too much. He hasn’t seen them because he hadn’t realised Bruce had moved in quite that far.

He watches while Bruce buttons his shirt, zips up his pants, knots his tie; picks socks and laces shoes and then does up his cuffs. It’s oddly erotic, though he is well aware that Bruce does it on autopilot and probably doesn’t feel the least bit sensual while he strangles himself with his shirt collar.

This time the goodbye is a nod of the head.

“Jim,” Bruce says, paused in the doorway just long enough to look back and catch his eye, “I’m really not that complicated.”

And then he’s gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Gordon snorts and uncoils from the window.

Then he goes to work.

Babs intercepts him around lunchtime when she storms in with wisps of red hair shaking loose from her ponytail and her glasses almost quivering on the end of her nose.

“Dad, what are you doing here?” she demands.

He looks down at the paperwork that’s been swimming in front of his eyes for the last half an hour. “Working,” he says.

“Two more days,” she says ominously, “You were supposed to rest for two more days.”

“I’m fine, Babs.”

He isn’t. He’s sweating and shivering and his eyes can’t seem to get in focus but he’s damn well not going to be mothered and nursed for the rest of his life.

Bruce seems to think this is hilarious.

Gordon just wants to know why Bruce is still partially living in his apartment.

A large hand steers him to the couch. “Because Barbara would kill you with kindness and Gotham still needs a police commissioner.”

John drops by in the evening, pointedly ringing the doorbell and looking suspiciously at the both of them in Gordon’s tiny front room as if he’s uncertain of what they’re about to do.

Since Gordon feels like he’s been run over by a truck, the effort John makes to be embarrassed about his sex life is frankly annoying.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” he asks, pressing his hand against his brow.

John frowns down at him and announces, “You look terrible, sir.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m serious. Have you taken something? You should be in bed.”

Bruce kindly extricates John before Gordon can find enough energy to respond in the way he wants to.

“This,” Bruce says, “Is why I’m staying. And none of them are. I’ve got to go out.”

“And leave me to die?”

He’s joking. He really is. He’s not upset by the fussing so much as unused to it. Bruce also doesn’t fuss. Bruce ignores him, mocks him, puts up with him, but doesn’t coddle him. And he appreciates it. Neither of them do well on a short leash.

The silence, however, makes him look around.

Bruce’s expression is unguarded and honest. And very worried.

“You’ve got a fever that hasn’t gone down in six hours, Jim,” Bruce says quietly, “I’m going to get you medication. I’d order it, but I doubt you want anyone to find me here. I need you to drink the damn juice. Lie still. The phone’s there; I’ll call every fifteen minutes and you are going to pick up. If you don’t, I will send everyone from the ambulance to Alfred, and the resultant chaos will be enough to make the papers. I will even call a contact in the Gazette so there will be a photo of you carried out by the EMTs. Are we agreed?”

“Alright. I admit I don’t feel so good,” Gordon confesses pathetically.

“The first step to recovery is to admit that you have a problem,” Bruce sighs, “Good. We’ve only got eleven steps to go.”

They spend the rest of the night bringing the fever down. At one point he’s either lucid or delirious enough to curse John for getting just as wet and being completely fine.

Bruce lays a wet cloth over his eyes and tells him curtly to get some sleep.

“I’m fine,” he says, from beneath the cloth, “You should get some sleep too.”

“When I’m done,” Bruce says flatly.

Apparently, he’s never done.

Gordon does fall asleep at some point. When he wakes up, the cloth is a little too cool and too wet to have been on him for long, and Bruce is still in exactly the same chair he was in before. He’s even awake, though his head is bent tiredly over a book.

Gordon watches him for a while before Bruce looks up.

Bruce gazes back right back, blinks, and returns to his book.

Gordon doesn’t understand the gesture. But then again, there is a lot about Bruce he doesn’t understand.

He drifts back into sleep beneath the weight of that thought, and sleeps far longer now his fever’s broken. And when he wakes up, it’s to soft hands and a soothing voice cooing over him.

“Babs,” he says tiredly, and cracks one bleary eye.

“Two days,” she says sweetly, gently, “You’re an idiot, Dad.”

He’s possibly still delirious because he looks at her, swallows painfully, and says, “Do you understand why he stayed?”

Her hands freeze. “I had a few thoughts. I thought I was reading too much into it.”

“The truth,” he tells her, “Is far stranger than fiction.”

The clatter of the book falling from his bedside to the floor startles them both.

“Let’s not talk about this now,” she says, “You’re not well. You’re not thinking straight.”

He winces.

“Oh god, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Are you? Really? You and him? How is that even possible?”

Which is roughly how he tells the most important person in his life that he has slept with Bruce, that he has done it more than once with full consent and consciousness, and that there is the potential for him to do it again an indefinite number of times.

Bruce isn’t laughing any more.

“We’ll have to talk about this,” he says ominously.

“I’ve been trying to,” Gordon tells him.

They’re sitting in the front room, Gordon piled under the blankets that Bruce threw negligently over him like a bundle of discarded laundry.

It’s a comfortable feeling, he finds, being buried under layers of warmth and scratchy wool. The soup in the cup Bruce thrust wordlessly into his hands is fresh, and he doesn’t ask where it’s come from. Doesn’t need to. There’s a thermos sitting prominently on the kitchen counter.

“How do you feel about now?” Bruce asks.

“I’ll say things without thinking.”

“Might work in our favour,” Bruce says callously.

Gordon sips again and then clears his throat. “I’ll start, then. What exactly do you think we have here?” he asks.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know what you get out of this.”

Bruce freezes. Looks genuinely surprised and then slightly confused, brows pulling together over the bridge of his nose. “I thought it was obvious.”

Gordon looks at him pointedly.

Bruce sighs. Drags his hand through his hair and shakes his head. “Jim,” he says gently, “I’m really not that complicated.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m here,” Bruce stresses, “I’m sitting right here. I’m not much good at taking care of people but I’m trying. How could you possibly misunderstand that?”

Gordon groans and rubs the twitch he’s developing over his right eye. “Bruce, so help me, when I asked the question, I meant ‘give me an honest answer’!”

“I’ve been honest from the start.”

“I’m too old for this,” Gordon growls.

Not particularly threatening but then he’s not trying to threaten Bruce so much as express his simple frustration with Bruce’s inability to say exactly what he means. Of course, Bruce manages to misunderstand that.

“And we’re back to that,” he scoffs, and expresses his displeasure with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Well, I am.”

“It doesn’t matter to me.”

“It should.”

“Age doesn’t matter. My money doesn’t matter. Jim, if you were anyone else, I wouldn’t be here!”

The sudden shout is rare enough that he blinks and clutches at his soup.

It’s a reflexive gesture – more of a response to loud noises that actual instinctual fear at the violence Bruce is suddenly projecting – but Bruce is appalled. Breathes out hard and surges forward, eyes intense with apology.

“I’m sorry,” he says convulsively, “God, I’m sorry.”

“For God’s sake,” Gordon rolls his eyes, “I can have a fight without bursting into tears. I can even yell back.”

“I don’t want this to be about yelling.”

“People yell all the time.”

“Not us.”

“Maybe we should.”

There are a lot of things they should be doing, and most of it shouldn’t be with each other. He tries to clear his throat and think of ways to say that without repeating the same cycle of words they’ve used before.

In retrospect, he’s going to blame what happens next on his illness – “How do you see this working?”

“We have something...”

“We have a lot of secrets,” Gordon sighs, breaking in before they start on the same old treadmill. “Tell me what ‘something’ is.”

“What do you think it is?” Bruce counters, looking genuinely interested.

“I asked you.”

“Then I’d say what we have is something nobody else would understand,” Bruce says, “Maybe we don’t understand it either. I’d say that scares you, because you can’t define it. I’d say you can’t define anything without believing it exists.”

Gordon blinks.

Bruce spreads his hands, as if inviting confidence. “Do you believe we exist?”

Gordon has to take a moment to think about that. His head hasn’t lost the cottonwool feeling but in some ways, it helps.

“We exist as people,” he says cautiously.

He’s treated to a tiny quirk of Bruce’s lips. “We do. And how do we exist as people?”

“Friends,” Gordon says.

Bruce waves at him to continue.

“Why am I the only answering?”

“Because we tried this conversation your way and it didn’t work. Now we’re doing this my way. Go on.”

“What more is there to say? We’re friends. We get along. You trust me with your secret and the whole point of what we do together is put things right. That’s what this has always been about. Changing the world, and putting things right.”

“I’m not here because I’m putting things right. I don’t have to be here. I could be out there, focused on the mission. I’d be happy to see you back but I wouldn’t be here.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I should think it was obvious,” Bruce sighs.

Gordon stares. He’s not sure what else to do when he gets information but no answers.

He understands that Bruce’s mind works in odd ways – that Bruce thinks and does but doesn’t really know how to communicate – but this is so surreal by this point that he clutches his blankets to make sure he’s not hallucinating the entire conversation.

He’s probably lucky in the circumstances that Babs drops by. Closely followed by John. Closely accompanied by Robin. The first smiles, the second nods, and the third glares.

They sit in a row and Bruce doesn’t seem to think this is at all strange.

It starts out well enough, for a given value of ‘well’. After all, he’s still the police commissioner and these three are still vigilantes. He’s supposed to caution them, question them, then unmask them, and then... then he’s not sure. Possibly arrest them or something.

“You look a little flushed,” Babs says, and then goes very still.

Three sets of blue eyes go wide before they look elsewhere. One pair stares speculatively at Bruce, the second closes in a pained expression, and the third just glares in a different direction.

Bruce, perfectly well aware of what’s going on, preserves the world’s most innocent silence and blinks enquiringly back at him. Since Gordon has a history of deciphering the minute shifts of the corners of his mouth to draw on, he knows damn well when he’s being laughed at.

It brings an unexpected warmth to his chest and makes him sneeze.

Bruce kindly tosses him the tissues.

“I’m going to bed,” Gordon declares, and gives up on the blankets.

 For the next hour he lies in bed and resolutely refuses to listen to the low murmur of voices from the living room.

By rights he should be in there.

He knows that.

Sick or not, that is technically his job – to catch criminals and gather information on crime. To know what’s threatening his city. And with anyone else, he thinks tiredly, he’d probably be dragging himself out there to get it done.

He squeezes his eyes shut and does not think about how the pillow next to him smells of something odd that he knows has nothing to do with him.

By the time Bruce comes in his head is aching from the effort.

“I expected you to stay up,” Bruce remarks, and takes off his shoes.

“Would I have been welcome?”

The right shoe pauses briefly before it’s dropped to the floor. “No.”

Truthful, Gordon thinks, they’ve got that too.

“Somehow I knew I wouldn’t be.”

“There are some things even you shouldn’t know. Not until they’re relevant.”

“Illegal? Dangerous? Likely to get somebody killed?”

“All three,” Bruce says bluntly, and suddenly looks defeated.

Gordon studies him.

“You’ve played nurse long enough,” he says abruptly, “I’m fine. You should be out there. Leave Robin if you think I’m going to cough to death.”

Bruce chuckles, less than amused, and shakes his head.  “Robin wouldn’t appreciate it. He’d do it but... you have to pick the fights worth winning.”

“Sounds like Babs.”

“All of us. Even you.”

The tone is light, affectionate. Bruce is bare-chested and bare-legged and sliding beneath the heavy cover of blankets to curl up on the bed beside him. The lights go out and a hand ghosts over his face, ever so slightly clumsy but somehow oddly endearing in its light, delicate touch.

“I have to go back tomorrow,” Bruce’s voice tells him, urgent and low, “But I can spare one more night.”

“I’m not forcing you to stay here.”

The hand slips down to his throat.

“If you need to go,” he qualifies ruthlessly.

“I do. But I can spare one more night.”

The hand drops away and he misses it terribly. Which is, again, probably why he says, “Don’t you want a family, Bruce? A wife, kids? Someone to come home to?”

He has an image in his head of the kind of life a billionaire should lead. It’s expensive but it doesn’t need to be outside the realm of possibility. The Bruce who can sideline the mission and slide into bed with him is the sort of man who can afford a suitable wife, two point something children and maybe a dog. A beaming and very loyal Alfred. A massive Christmas tree and summer holidays on a yacht and graceful grey hairs from the advancing years.

He can almost hear Bruce frown.

“Don’t we have one?” Bruce asks, sounding genuinely confused.

He stares up into the dark.

Which Bruce once again misinterprets.

“Ah,” Bruce says, and his voice goes carefully blank. “I see.”

Gordon waits, hoping he’ll see it too eventually.

“I didn’t realise,” Bruce continues, “I thought we were on the same page with this.”

Gordon groans, and struggles out from the suffocating helplessness he’s been buried beneath for the last week.

“That,” he growls, “Is my point! We’re not on any page! We’re not even in the book! Because neither of us knows what the hell is going on!”

“Jim.”

“Shut up,” he says savagely, and his voice breaks only because he’s got a sore throat.

Bruce doesn’t radiate any kind of impressed silence but he does go quiet. And patient. And remains expressionless.

Gordon sits up and shifts around, and then he has his hands free to peel the rest of the bedding away.

“When I said I wanted the truth, I meant I wanted you to be literal. Tell me exactly where we stand, and what you want. I can’t second-guess what’s in your head. And what do you mean, ‘we have a family’?”

“Of a sort,” Bruce says slowly.

Gordon bites down on his tongue and waits pointedly.

Bruce shifts but doesn’t sit up. “Don’t look now, Jim, but we’re figures of authority. In a literal sense in the case of Dick and Barbara. You never noticed?”

It takes him a moment before he really gets it. And then he has a flashback to listening to Dick Grayson sitting on a park bench, telling him all about his plans for the future. Of doing exactly the same thing with John. And Babs. And mediating for all three.

“Hell,” he says weakly.

Bruce nods.

“Mentors,” he suggests desperately.

Bruce radiates a calming silence.

“Hell,” he says again.

Bruce snorts. “Go to sleep, dear. The kids said to tell you they’ll call tomorrow.”

 


End file.
